The Blacker Half

“There shall be no tears in the end.”

With those words the boy was finally released from the realm of dreams. Lately this guy, who could not be any older than he, had popped in more and more of his dreams and each time he had some message, like “There are eyes in the shadows” or “You can run be death is always faster.” But like all things of this supernatural type nature no one but him thought anything of it. But over time he stopped thinking it was anymore than a nightmare brought one by his love for late night, before bed scary movies.

So like any child who had walked this earth for but sixteen years, he pulled himself out of bed completing his morning ritual like one of the undead. Then with his preparations complete he set out to the place that would make the evilest bastards known to man cry like a little girls, high school. Along this path to this abyss he ran into his every cheery and happy friend, Rin.

“RAZZ, MORNING!!!” How the hell anyone can be so loud and happy at this time of the morning while going to the depths hell itself he would never know. But he was a gentleman of sorts, more like a gentleman zombie this early (Gentleman Zombie, he will ask to eat your flesh politely with all the proper utensils), and returned this positive hello with a nice polite “ugh,” a fair trade in his book. So together they walked, like always, her talking and screaming like an idiot and he nodding and giving the simple yeses, nos, huhs, and whats.

Upon reaching his own personal hell called school he met his other friend, Chama. She looked him straight in his eyes (a personal best for her), which he took as a greeting. Unlike Rin, who he was positive was on crack or something, Chama was small (in every sense of the word), quiet, and ran from small kittens. But he was fine with that; Rin had the boldness for both her and him with enough for three extra people. Then the weird crap started again. Maybe it had always been like this, or maybe he was going crazy, but something was wrong here. Those two were talking to him. This may not seem weird to you, but he wasn’t that great of a guy (maybe a 6 out of 10) and two beautiful girls were hanging out with HIM by their own free will. Oh well, he wasn’t one to curse his awesome luck.

But there was other weird things going on, like that weird cloud that had been hanging over the forest area. He was sure no cloud was supposed to just stay like that, perfectly still not doing anything. Plus weren’t black clouds supposed to rain eventually. Well it had been a bloody fortnight and not a drop had fallen. Of course like everything these days no one believed him about it. In actuality everyone acted as if they didn’t see it at all (maybe he really was crazy). To top off the list he was getting paranoid. Everyday he would walk home, right after his club let out, and it would be pitch black, thanks to the mountains that surrounded the town, when he would start feeling things. Like someone was staring at the back of his head and when he would turn around to look it was as if they had gone behind him again because that same feeling was there. After a while he could hear things, breathing that sounded as raspy as a corpse. But that was nothing compared to the fear when he could hear steps, trying (and almost succeeding) to match his. Someone or something was following him, waiting for some unknown signal to move. Lately he was even feeling their eyes watching him from the foot of his bed; his room was incredibly dark at night. Just sitting there while he crapped himself in fear. He was sure this was not the guy he had been seeing in his dreams. No that guy would not do this; he would rush in, save him from some dream monster, and then deliver some creepy line. In actuality the guy might show up to kill this stalker.

So each day he would sit through school, which made him hope the monster would just come and kill him already, and then go home and fear for his life. But for some reason today felt different. First of all Chama, who was known for perfect attendance, had been gone all week. Then Rin had not yelled once and it was already lunch. And apparently he had been seen by three credible eyewitnesses breaking into the school Tech. Ed. room and stealing some “blade-like mechanisms.” He didn’t do it, he knows he didn’t. But they where sure and he still got detention next week for it (he himself was beginning to doubt his innocence). But he was freaking out, waiting for something weird to happen.

But he went home, before he was reminded of his little bastard friend. So he kept walking and listening to the footsteps. Then they stopped. For a second he felt everything we be ok again. The sound of those same footsteps running towards him reminding him that he was totally fed. They were running to him and he ran. He was an ok runner (in his own mind) and thought that he could escape. But the faster he ran the faster the creature got, like it was keeping its distance but keeping him afraid. So into the forest he ran, which reminded him of how stupid he was. It was already dark outside and with that freaking cloud hanging over head he couldn’t see crap. But he could not turn around, since it was behind him. He ran as fast as he could, straight into a tree. He fell over, blood flowing from his head, and just sat there trying to remember what the hell was going on. The footsteps came upon him and he looked up and saw nothing. Then he felt something rip from him and escape through his body. He could not describe the feeling just that it hurt. Everything around him became black, well blacker, and then there came a blinding flash and before him stood something. It looked human in shape and posture alone but that was where the similarities ended. His skin was not skin, it was flowing, pulsating, alive, and it was black as the night. From him there radiated an aura of fear and evil that was so strong that it rolled off of him in visible waves. But in his surprise at seeing this man-thing he had forgotten his pain and it was now gone, taking with it all his fear. He tried, quite stupidly, to find the fear again but it would not come to him, all he found was bliss and elation. He was happy, happier than any time he could remember, yet why now when he stood in front of death incarnate itself.

“Who, no, what are you?”

The creature just closed it eyes and looked away with sigh of what appeared to be sad frustration, the blackness made reading his face impossible. It looked back at him, its white little pupils boring into his soul, as if it saw beyond him and into his mind itself.

“The light must be extinguished so that shadow may engulf.”

“….” Well that was helpful, and oddly familiar. Wait, creepy guy, monster chasing him, and a weird, dark line. Oh well now he knew who he was but that did not help much. What he needed to know now is, one, where was that monster and, two, why was this guy here and not in his dream/nightmare.

“The eternal flame will be suffocated in the black box, the shadows unleashed.” Before he could give an answer, and look even stupider, the shadowed man ran at him. He could barely make out the man before and now the bastard was running around like a fricking rabbit, so he saw was movement going somewhere before it disappeared. Then his paranoia kicked in and it told him to move. Well it would be better than just hanging here so he did a diving crash to the right. Behind him he felt something slash where he had been standing, he would have to thank his paranoia later. But, like all things lately, the dive ended with his face in another tree. He felt his head and more blood was flowing from it, enough to engulf his whole face in its warm, soothing embrace. Before he could stand and run again he felt… something rip through him, like an object had went in his chest and didn’t come out the other end. It was not painful as one would expect, no, more like disheartening. He felt himself fall from the happiness he had been blissfully in and fall straight into the depths of despair. Nobody believed that something was going wrong, and now it had him. He was going to be tormented and mutilated in this spot. And when they cared enough to get up and look, just to see what happened, they will find him here. There will be no sadness, no tears, only relief that he is gone and will no longer bother them. These morbid like thoughts consumed him for what he thought was a millennia, but was no more than a few seconds. His mind and his very soul were drowned in this flood of sadness that he himself had created. They disappeared into the black void that was once the emotions of happy and goodness.

The dark man stood very still, his black hand still in the boy’s chest. He had to make sure the ritual did not mess up or it would end him. As he felt the last remnants of the boys drown away in blackness he began the next step. His black skin fell away, revealing a face that matched the one he was destroying at the very moment, as his hand pumped all that he was inside into the empty shell that was once the boy. Another conscience being entered the body and took what it had before. All of him was pushed in there reclaiming it own territory and moving past the forgotten boys barrier into the half of light. Finally the hand it self entered, and all that was left of the man was a black, pulsing scar. As he began to move his new muscles, learn to control a semi-foreign body, the cloud of pure evil, that had hung over head like an omen for two weeks, opened its maw and released a torrent of dark water. And it this downpour the man, now the boy, stood, the rain covering his lie.

Note: A forced write for a class. It had heavy regulations, one of which being it had to begin with a lie, and my writing suffered for it. Most of the subtleties are something only I would get or are taken from a currently unwritten story. Still from all the obstacles I think it came out alright.